The Psychology Behind PAD and TAD?

[cigrmaster]

Are there any psychologists or psychiatrists on this site so you can give your professional opinions? As you guys know I recently came back to my pipes and this site and already I am in the throes of both PAD and TAD. I have enough tobacco for 25 years, yet I just ordered some new blends to see if I should add them to my cellar. I just bought 2 new pipes, one new and one estate even though I had 30 quality artisan pipes in my collection. I am again scouring the internet for pipes and maybe new blends to try. So what the hell is up with this obsessive behavior? Am I forever doomed to have PAD and TAD in my life?

 

[stvalentine]

32 pipes? You´re completely sane to me! :wink:

 

[elbert]

I don't know, but I do know that TAD is a much easier thing to justify and explain to non-pipers.
And to turn a phrase about PAD...
The leaf always smokes better out of the pipe you haven't got.

 

[elpfeife]

Actually I think Harris has been a primary cause of TAD and Pad for me. What causes him the disorder(s) I don't know.

 

[monty55]

Hahaa, I had the same problem when I got back into it recently. I feel your pain Harris. I don't know what it is. If I was a conspiracy type person I'd say they put something in the tobacco to turn us into crazed, tobacco smoking, pipe drooling maniacs. :lol:
Who knows. Maybe that kid that was doing the research paper on here will have some answers. IMO it's a combination of several factors. For one, tobacco is consumable, yet can also appreciate in value. So it's a consumable investment, which makes its special, and mysterious to a degree. It has a broad range of taste for every discriminating palate out there. We don't know how something smokes till we buy it and try it, so there is a constant urge to either try something new, or get more of what we already love.. usually a bit of both. Secondly, Pipes are an extension of our daily lives, we use them most every day, some people all day. That makes it an important part of us. And still wanting to try what elludes us, we are on that constant quest for a pipe that fits our soul. To be that proper reflection of us, in our eyes. And for some dumb reason money dosn't really usually stop us. We may not buy as much, or as fancy, but buy we do. I started about a month ago and can't seem to find the break pedal yet :?

 

[brudnod]

I have had the same problem with hobbies over the years. Get into it and then the fire burns lower. I have been hoping for 40 years for that to happen with pipe smoking. No luck...

 

[menuhin]

@elbert

I don't know, but I do know that TAD is a much easier thing to justify and explain to non-pipers...

I have to disagree - I don't think I would sample all the pops available in supermarket and constantly trying to find old pops and those from overseas. And while I love chocolate, I am not as obsessed to obtain interesting chocolate samples either. I think for some people they can have chocolate acquisition disorder, however not in my case.
I would say around 30 pipes is a reasonable number, be these pipes corn cobs or artisan pipes. However, when number approaches 100 and then 300, then PAD is getting serious. Those most serious cases I know are those beyond 1000 pipes.
There is a disorder called 'Compulsive Buying Disorder' which can be similar.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1805733/
Now I have a picture in my mind: forum members going to self-help groups, like in the movie 'pipe-club', confessing to each other about their PAD & TAD, sharing secrets that their spouses or families do not know, and trying to help each other to keep their PAD & TAD at bay.
::

 

[mso489]

Hypothesis: Buying pipes and tobaccos, within some sort of limits, is a way to reward yourself and still maintain your job, household, relationships and financial balance. I have about 70 pipes but a fairly modest cellar. A number of the pipes are MM and Old Dominion cobs, and also include Dr. Grabow, Yello-Bole, Kaywoodies, basket pipes and pipes I bought new more than 30 years ago, so not high price items. But no excuses, they are more pipes than anyone needs or will ever need. They do provide some social networking via Forums, the local pipe show, and my acquaintance with local tobacconists and a friend or two who smoke pipes with me.

 

[escioe]

Some people like to spend money. Other people like to own stuff. Some people like both. That's the thread, isn't it?
I don't get any particular pleasure out of owning things. I'm like a peak experience smoker, always looking for the magic smoke. I've bought 2 pipes in the last four years or so. Makes it easier on the wallet for sure.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Pipe smoking is such a materialist thing oriented hobby to begin with. Cigarettes, you just need a pack and a lighter, cigars you need a cutter and a lighter, but pipes, you have to always have a pipe, pouch, and tools on hand. So, it's easy to constantly be looking for the best or most appealing "things." Plus, the tobacco is so much cheaper than any of the other forms of tobacco use. The same amount of cigars or cigarettes that it would take to smoke through a tin, makes for it to be, comparatively, birdfeed. Even the most expensive pipe tobacco doesn't compare to cigars, well.. good cigars.
And, for me it doesn't help to have a pipe shop owner who calls me to ask me if I want this or that, that he sees while in Chicago, and then calls me to tell me that he has a whole box of stuff that he wants me to come look through on Monday. :::sigh::: damn his good soul. Ha ha!!

 

[elbert]

@Menuhin
Maybe not pop (although there is an astonishing variety of quality Root Beers out there), but certainly anyone who is into wine, scotch, craft beer, etc. Would understand.
If I visited someone's house and they gave me a tour of their wine cellar, I would have a very different reaction than if they gave me a tour of their wine-glass cellar! :crazy:

 

[ravenwolf]

While not a genuine professional, I do have some related work experience, and time to kill while musing.
The best thing I can conjure up, at least without sitting with a pipe over it for a good long while, is that pipes and tobaccos work themselves into so many facets of our lives.
Social interactions, or quiet introverted solitude. Taste, touch, scent (the strongest trigger of memory), visual aesthetics. The stories of the people that make pipes and tobaccos.
The near legendary people in the industries that you occasionally may be blessed to interact with. Sharing a joke with Brian Levine over Cuban Coffee at the Chicago Show, Marty Pulvers explaining in various ways how his thumb may or may not fit into a pipe's bowl and to which knuckle's depth, that time JT Cooke nearly spat in your eye when all you wanted was to attempt a comission, or most recently for me when Facebooking with the Honorable Mr. Greg Pease and suggested that he should name his next band "Latakaster" - a combo of latakia + telecaster, which somebody suggested would be Greg's final words upon parting the Earth one day.
You can smoke stuff that will instantly sprout brand new chest hair, or if it's a Gawith rope, maybe brand new head hair even. You can smoke stuff that will make ladies recall their grandfather. You can buy a pipe big enough to potentially bludgeon someone with, or a lean-and-mean pipe, from pretty much anywhere in the world thanks to the internet. I've thrown my cob in the water after a big fish that got away at the last second and felt thoroughly satisfied in my retribution.
It's affordable in any price range, and you can't do it wrong.
It connects a lot of the facets of what makes a human being a human being.
Collecting pipes and tobaccos... it's kind of like collecting the essences of the spectrums of humanity. Who wouldn't want to collect that?

 

[brudnod]

Pretend for a moment that pipe tobacco was $8 per ounce, which would seem reasonable for any other tobacco use. No one would be so anxious to buy a pound of tobacco in any blend. But that is what we do; we buy at much more reasonable prices and enjoy the cellaring that that allows. The same could be said for pipes if the amount of briar diminished significantly over the next few decades...

 

[cigrmaster]

ravenwolf, that was one of the best posts I have read on this site, so introspective and so on the money. Thanks for taking the time to write that.
I personally still get a kick from getting a new pipe or new blend delivered to my house. I still feel like a kid at Christmas everytime that big brown truck pulls up to my door. As soon as something new comes in, I cannot wait to open the package, grab a new pipe and load it up with a new blend. I think that if I did not get such a charge out of it, I would think that something was wrong with me.

 

[misterlowercase]

ravenwolf, that was one of the best posts I have read on this site, so introspective and so on the money. Thanks for taking the time to write that.

+1

:clap:
Although pipesmoking has materialistic aspects like Cosmic pointed out,

I agree with Ravenwolf that the experiences outweigh the consumer driven aspect, a pipe is a transporter of sorts, and the journey in and of itself is the celebration, and we arrive at many different destinations.
I liken it to how I used to collect records, the vinyl black wax is just a physical object, but what lays in those grooves is pure transcendental magic...

 

[gloucesterman]

Cigrmaster, I think you pegged it. It's like "being a kid on Christmas" each and every time. It never gets old.

 

[jkrug]

I don't know what it is but it sure gets a hold of us somehow doesn't it!

I set monthly limits on what I will spend on PAD/TAD and try to stick to that limit, doesn't always work.

I find myself online constantly looking at pipes and tobacco marvelling at a pipes beauty and wishing to acquire it, wondering how it will smoke and feel in hand and going over the different tobacco blends, comparing ingredients and reading reviews wondering if I should order it to see how I like it. At times it truly consumes me!! It doesn't help that my wife enjoys my pipe smoking and is very supportive of it.

 

[seacaptain]

I've been on a lot of different hobby forums over the years and one thing is the same on all of them. They always describe their hobby as an "addiction".

 

[maxx]

For me, there's the first phase, where I explore to discover my tastes to find what I like and like less or not at all. That's where I am with tobacco and pipes. In phase two, I tend to settle on my favorites and disregard the rest. That's where I am with beer and sort of with Bourbon and Scotch. It is where I am with firearms and knives: I know what I like and disregard the rest. I don't know how phase two will go with tobacco or pipes, but probably in a similar way.
The difficulty I see with pipes and tobacco is that each pipe creates its own experience, less so with tobacco. We get pleasurable feedback when we smoke, reward for choosing that particular pipe and tobacco. The feedback is not as strong with some objects one could collect. There is also a drive to completeness that can push us to add more to a collection or to extend the range of our exploration. Also, if you are in a community, online or not, where many around you are buying pipes and talking about blends you haven't tried, you vicariously experience their pleasures with their new pipes and tobacco you haven't tried. Those vicarious experiences suggest that even greater pleasure could be gotten by doing what they are doing: buying pipes and trying untasted tobacco. You can then be active in the community in the same way as the others, and not be only an onlooker.

 

[buroak]

I have little in the way of solid thinking on the psychological factors driving PAD and TAD, but this thread and the forums in general remind me of a study on smoking cessation support groups. Specifically, support groups often make it harder for members to quit smoking. The reason is that the members end up sharing what they like/miss about smoking, thus tacitly approving a resumption of smoking. Participation in these forums probably exacerbates TAD and PAD by exposing us to pipes and tobaccos we do not have, and showing us the peer validation we could receive by acquiring a new pipe or trying a new tobacco. Furthermore, the forums create a permissive, enabling environment in regards to PAD and TAD. I recall a thread in which one member stated their desire to avoid pipe purchases for a set time. The general response from other members was that such an attempt at self-denial was futile, maybe even silly.